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Rh the dearth of reciprocal friendship,—the pleasures of intelligence; it was the privation of those infinite sweetnesses of life; the void, the vacuum of her breast, which caused her to languish, and often transformed the populous city she inhabited into the solitude of a desert: above restraint, her vivid imagination wandered to the future, and fed on hopes, such as in this delusive world are rarely realized.

It was now the latter end of February; the season was unusually advanced; the country already assumed a verdure, which failed not to call many to dispel the vapours gathered in the midnight assembly, by a walk in Kensington Gardens, where the gay throng presented to the eye of an indifferent spectator contributed equally to the gratification of curiosity as of entertainment.

Amongst the beaux of fortune and of distinction joining in the fashionable promenade, was Harcourt, of a handsome person and elegant address: rival beauties, emulous of his notice, sought him with avidity, dwelt upon his words, were flattered by his smiles, and felt their light hearts flutter with all the consciousness of triumph, if haply they caught one glance of admiration from his animated eye.

He had been for some time engaged in frivolous